The Boundaries of Oz
by Bar Sira
Summary: Dealing with a previously unknown Wicked Witch of the North, the bottle of Powder of Life that she sends to southern Florida, and the consequences that result.
1. Civil Disobedience

**Author's note:** I originally posted this story in installments on my main account ("Qoheleth"), but I decided about halfway through that there were better things I could be spending my time on, and deleted it from that account several months ago. In retrospect, however, it seems to me that the chapters I've already written should exist somewhere on the Internet - and, accordingly, I have decided to post them on this, my backup account. This story should, accordingly, be treated as a historical artifact, and not as something that will ever be updated.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Chronicles of Oz, or any part thereof – they belong to the L. Frank Baum estate, if one is still in operation. (No doubt there are a lot of other things in this story that I don't own, either, but these will be dealt with as they appear.)

* * *

Ozara the Orange stood in front of her hut and gazed out over the purple countryside below her with an air of cold loathing.

She hated the color purple, mostly because of that miserable dinosaur the Outlanders so loved, but that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was that she knew full well who had imposed the purple hue on the Gillikin Country – the same wretched fairy whose wretched daughter now forbade the use of magic in this or any other Ozzish territory, curse her.

What did the little brute know about magic, anyway? She had spent most of her first twelve years of life under a Gynandrus Spell, and she didn't even know how you brewed up one of those. And this was the little git who was sitting up in her cozy little palace in the Emerald City, feeling so content in her moral superiority that she thought nothing of casually issuing edicts that destroyed a poor woman's entire life's work! It made Ozara fume just thinking about it.

Ah, well, she was getting her revenge today. It had taken her sixty-seven years, of which the last six had been devoted completely to stirring, but she had done it.

Oh, she had made little attacks on the Ozzish orthodoxy before now. She had developed a Magic Helmet that enabled the wearer to travel anywhere on Earth just by thinking about it; she had discovered a way to render anyone immune to the effects of Nomish and Phanfasmal (though not Ozzish or Evvian) magic; and she had once granted will and intelligence to a turnip.

(The turnip thing had turned out to be a mistake. It seems turnips have remarkable oratorical gifts – for vegetables, anyway – and this particular turnip had begun to preach a philosophy of Anti-Torpisticism to the mildew in Ozara's bathroom, which had taken to it with a passion. What Anti-Torpisticists actually believed, Ozara wasn't sure, but it seemed to involve a lot of rejecting any norm or folkway, inherent or imposed, that impeded the growth of an individual into his full potential. In practical terms, this meant that Ozara had to spend a lot more time cleaning out the bathroom.)

Today, though, was the real thing. Today all the boundaries between Oz and the Outlands would come crashing down, and then let Ozma look to her fortunes, and Glinda and Oscar Diggs, too.

And just as she had reached this delightful conclusion, her assistant, whom she called Ernest, came out of the hut.

He wasn't really named Ernest; in fact, he claimed not to have a name at all. He claimed that nobody had a name in the part of Oz he came from, that names were only for people who weren't comfortable with their true selves. Ozara thought that this was the stupidest thing she had ever heard, and had informed him in no uncertain terms that as long as he was in her employ, he would answer to the name of Ernest. Most of the time he didn't, but she kept him anyway.

"Lady Ozara?" he said.

"Yes, Ernest?" said Ozara.

The man said nothing.

"Yes, Ernest?" Ozara repeated, this time with a sharper edge to her voice.

"Oh!" said the Nameless Man, as if he were just realizing it. "Were you speaking to me?"

Ozara glared at him.

"Anyway, what I wanted to say," said the Nameless Man, "is that the You-Know-What is almost ready for bottling."

Ozara's entire countenance changed. Her moment had come at last.

"Lead the way, Ernest," she said.

The Nameless Man just stood there.

Ozara considered giving him a five-minute lecture on the usual subjects – that he was very lucky to be working for her, that the late Wicked Witch of the West would have long since obliterated every trace of him from the face of the Earth, and that, when this was taken into consideration, she really didn't think it unreasonable for him to humor her Gillikin eccentricities on the subject of nomenclature – but she decided that she didn't have the patience for it, and opted instead to kick him. It worked just as well.

The hut of Ozara the Orange was, to be blunt about it, a mess. There was the issue of the Anti-Torpisticist mildew, of course, but there was also an unseemly amount of magical paraphernalia strewn about – six-leaved clovers, crushed Wogglebugs, the balls off of Li-Mon-Eag tails, records that played "I'm Looking Over a Six-Leaf Clover", and a pot containing all the oil in a live man's body. (The live man had later written to thank Ozara, as his acne had cleared up marvelously since her harvest.)

The most interesting spectacle in the hut, however, was undoubtedly the four bubbling, steaming kettles that hung over the fire, and the ape that was stirring all four of them continuously and at a ferocious rate.

The ape's name was Pliny, and he had been Ozara's assistant in magical matters for over eight years. The last six of them had, it was true, been somewhat uneventful, but Pliny consoled himself with the thought that, if Ozara's plan worked and magic were brought back to Oz, this would look fantastic on his resume.

"So," said Ozara to Pliny. "When's it going to be ready?"

Pliny glanced up at the clock. "Twenty-eight seconds," he said.

Ozara and the Nameless Man gathered around the kettles, their minds awhirl with anticipation. Even Voorspoogel, the Anti-Torpisticist turnip, who regarded all forms of emotional excitement as a spiritual disease, condescended to approach the fire and at least look interested. This was a big moment, and everyone in the hut knew it.

As the clock passed the fifteen-second mark, the Nameless Man began to count under his breath. "Fifteen," he whispered. "Fourteen. Thirteen…"

Ozara joined him, and then Pliny. Even Voorspoogel joined in at eight seconds, although there was no hint in his voice that he was particularly thrilled by the nearness of the event.

"FIVE," the four of them chanted. "FOUR. THREE. TWO. ONE…"

FOOM!

A tremendous puff of steam went up from each of the four kettles, and for a moment all four residents of the room found themselves unable to see a thing.

When the steam cleared away, the four of them scrambled to get a glance into the kettles. There, nestled at the bottom of each kettle, was a small handful of fine white powder.

Ozara cackled a traditional Wicked Witch's cackle.

"Behold," she said. "The Powder of Life."


	2. The Stranger

It is a recognized fact that, the further in advance a plan has been worked out to the minutest detail, the more likely it is that, when the big moment finally comes, at least one of the parties involved is going to insist that it be done differently. Since this particular plan had been worked out several years in advance, it should therefore come as no surprise, once the Powder of Life was bottled and ready to be sent on its way, Pliny the Ape should have expressed some last-minute reservations.

"Um, ma'am?" he said.

Ozara turned. "Yes?" she said, and not in a particularly nice way, either. Now that the Powder was made, the Wicked Witch in her was beginning to come to the surface.

"Um… don't take this the wrong way or anything," said Pliny, "but do you really think it's the best thing to do, just sendin' the Powder out to the Outlands, without any guidance or anything?"

Ozara was dumbfounded. The stupid ape had known for eight years that she thought it was the best thing to do; if he had disagreed, why hadn't he said something about it beforehand?

"And what, pray tell, did you have in mind as an alternative?" she enquired icily.

"Well… I was thinkin' maybe we could just sort of keep it around the hut," said Pliny. "You bein' a witch an' all, we oughta find some good use for it."

"You mean like Voorspoogel?" said Ozara, gesturing toward the turnip named, who was directing an impassioned peroration on "Life Without Limits" to the linoleum tile.

"Well, that's what I was thinkin', ma'am," said Pliny. "Now we've got Voorspoogel, we know better than to bring another turnip to life. Whatever Outlander gets the Powder, they won't know that. They might try it, and then all havoc might break loose in the Outlands, what with all the local fungus gangin' up and rejecting boundaries. Wouldn't be good."

"But don't you see, you poor nitwit," said Ozara impatiently, "that's exactly what we want. That's the whole point of this civil disobedience plan, that all havoc will break loose. That way, however Ozma and her ilk react to the whole affair, they'll never again be able to take witches for granted."

Pliny pondered. "I suppose," he said. "Just the same, though, it would be pretty wretched if there was another Voorspoogel in the world, wouldn't it?"

Ozara had to admit that this would, in fact, be awful for all persons concerned. "I'll tell you what," she said. "We'll put a label on it specifically warning people not to use it on turnips."

Pliny agreed to this, and the gold bottle containing nine doses of Powder of Life was promptly labeled, sealed, and shot through Ozara's private tunnel in the Oz-Outlands barrier without further ado.

* * *

As luck would have it, a Munchkin named Fol Darrol happened to be walking through the countryside at this time, staring up at the sky.

Fol spent most of his time staring up at the sky, because he had a theory that since there were so many interesting things on the ground (and, this being Oz, there were quite a few of them), there must be equally as many interesting things in the sky, if somebody would only look at them. This philosophy caused Fol to spend much of his time bumping into things, but every so often it paid off. Today, for example.

Fol gazed quizzically at the gold bottle as it burst out of Ozara's chimney and sailed through the air. He then sat down on the ground and stared up at the sky for a while as he sorted out his thoughts.

"This is very strange," he said aloud. "I have walked all through the Land of Oz, and have seen many remarkable things in the sky – nightingales, mosquitoes, bats, stars, and other such aberrations of nature. But never have I seen a gold bottle exploding out of a chimney, or even attempt to explode out of a chimney. In such a singular case, it is only natural to enquire into the reasons behind it, for curiosity is one of the greatest gifts that mankind possesses."

Satisfied with this reasoning, he got up and hurried to the top of the hill on which Ozara's hut was situated, and it was a measure of his excitement that a passing honeybee only caused him to stare in awestruck wonder for three minutes.

* * *

"Well, that's that," said Ozara. "Now, then, who wants some traditional Gillikin orange cider?"

Pliny, the Nameless Man, and Voorspoogel all maintained a discreet silence.

"Four glasses, coming right up," said Ozara cheerfully.

However, before she could get to the kitchen to scrape the mildew off the orange press, there was a loud knocking on the door, and Fol walked in.

There was a momentary silence, as the four residents of the hut tried to figure out what to say to this person, and Fol stared fixedly at the ceiling.

"Um… may I help you, sir?" said Ozara.

Fol gestured upward with his thumb. "I beg your pardon, but what might this be?" he said.

Ozara followed his gaze. "It's called a ceiling."

"How extraordinary," said Fol. "Are they common in this part of Oz?"

"Oh, you see them every now and again," said Ozara. "What was it you wanted?"

With an effort, Fol wrenched himself away from the fascinating spectacle above him. "Some minutes ago," he said, "I observed a gold bottle burst out of your chimney and fly into the north. May I enquire what it was doing?"

"Oh, that?" said Ozara. "That was the bottle of Powder of Life that my associates and I have spent the past six years brewing, in defiance of Ozzish law, so we can wreak havoc in the Outlands." Subtlety had never been one of her strong suits.

"I see," said Fol. "Dear, dear, I suppose that means I'll have to go down to the Emerald City and report you for unlawful use of magic."

"Yes," Ozara agreed. "I suppose you will."

"What a shame," said Fol. "To think that this marvelous ceiling will have no one to care for it any longer."

Ozara shrugged. "Well, into each life some rain must fall."

"Yes, that is true," agreed Fol. "Many are the miracles of the land in which we live. Well, good morning." And he turned and left, kicking over a bottle of Essence of Saffron and turning his shoe bright yellow as he did so.

Pliny and the Nameless Man watched these proceedings with an air of utter befuddlement. Presumably, their employer had some rationale for her conduct, but just what that rationale might be completely escaped them.

"Well," said Ozara brightly, "now that our distinguished visitor has left us, who wants garlic in his cider?"

None of her associates said a thing.

"Excellent," she said. "I'll break out the cloves."


	3. Brave New World

At around 3:00 that afternoon, a bottle made of pure Ozzish gold landed in the Atlantic Ocean, several miles northeast of Miami. (The objects and spells that Ozara launched through her tunnel tended to wind up in this general area, a fact that caused the sailors passing through the area no end of grief.)

It sank to the sea floor almost immediately, and remained undisturbed there for several hours, until a large female barracuda swam by and happened to notice the strange object.

She nudged it experimentally with her snout. The bottle made no reply – as is hardly surprising, since the bottle had not had the magic words "Weaugh, Teaugh, Peaugh" recited over it, and could not therefore be expected to exhibit signs of life.

The barracuda, intrigued, presumed that this was some variety of shellfish that she had never before come across, and decided to see what it tasted like. She nudged the bottle into a standing position, descended upon it with open jaws, and bit down firmly.

It should be mentioned here that while the Powder of Life is useful for many purposes, food is not one of them. It is intended to imbue life to non-organic objects; to organic creatures that are already alive, it has precious little to offer.

The barracuda realized this almost instantly. Disgusted, she spat out the bottle and swam away, leaving the bottle – with a newly acquired series of holes around the girth – lying on the seabed for another explorer to discover.

* * *

That explorer, when he arrived, was not the sort of person with whom Captain Cook would have been impressed. The future Galvanizer of the Salad Bar was a fifty-ish, balding gentleman named Ralph E. Beutler, who had a thriving podiatric practice in the city of Miami, but was nonetheless a nice person.

He was also an amateur scuba diver, and on this particular afternoon he was going for a recreational swim. It had been a trying day in the medical world; most of his patients had been able to walk out of his office, but there had been a couple near scrapes.

And so, here he was, drifting lazily along, scanning the sea floor for traces of buried treasure (he was a bit of a romantic). What he got instead, of course, was starring billing in the greatest scandal to hit the Land of Oz since General Jinjur hung up her knitting needles.

Not that he knew anything of this. All he saw was a gold bottle with a series of punctures around the middle. However, since one does not generally find pure gold objects of any kind lying on the floor of the Caribbean, that was enough to spark his imagination.

He picked up the bottle, brushed off some of the accumulated debris, and examined it critically. He noticed what appeared to be a warning label on one side; however, he didn't have his glasses with him, and without them, he was utterly incapable of making out individual letters.

Accordingly, he turned swiftly around and made his way back to shore. His dive had already been more profitable than any other he had made in the last few months, and to spend another hour looking for Captain Kidd's lost cache would plainly be asking too much of fate. (Did Captain Kidd even have a lost cache? It seemed to Dr. Beutler that he had read something on the subject once, but he couldn't recall where.) And besides, it was probably prudent to find out what the label said. It might indicate that this bottle had been used in seventeen experiments with radioactive waste, and should never again be touched by human hands – in which case it was too late for him to save himself, but at least he would be forewarned.

* * *

When Dr. Beutler returned to shore, however, he had a more pressing problem. A punctured bottle is not great for containing powdery materials, and the Powder of Life was spilling copiously out through the tooth marks.

Dr. Beutler glanced around for an alternative container, and spied the bottle of Diet Pepsi he had bought for his lunch. It wasn't a great solution, but better than nothing.

He took the bottle, dumped out the soda that remained, and carefully transferred the Powder of Life to its new container – spilling some, of course, but managing to preserve eight of the original nine doses.

(It should be noted that all this took place in the summer of 1999, during which Pepsi-Cola was expending all available resources to promote Star Wars: Episode 1, and that consequently, the Diet Pepsi bottle that now held the Powder was one of those that bore Queen Amidala's face on its label. The fact bears remembering.)

This done, Dr. Beutler picked his glasses up off his beach chair, slid them onto his nose, and looked again at the warning label.

Which read, in its entirety: "POWDER OF LIFE. PLEASE DO NOT USE ON TURNIPS."

Dr. Beutler read this message three times, but could divine no meaning from it. He was not an admirer of the Chronicles of Oz (although he had, of course, seen the movie), and consequently the phrase "Powder of Life" conveyed nothing to him. The second sentence, however, intrigued him. Whatever this stuff was, there was clearly some risk of using it on turnips – or else, why would the manufacturer go to all the trouble of warning him not to? Presumably, therefore, something associated with the production of salads. Probably a new seasoning or something, which had been recalled from the market almost immediately, after several customers were poisoned when they tried to use it in their turnip pasties.

He sprinkled a few grains onto his finger and licked experimentally.

Ugh! he thought. Clearly, not a condiment that could be separated from its base.

Well, he would try it this evening. He would make himself an enormous salad – one of those hodge-podge Caesars he was so fond of – and see what it tasted like with a liberal dash of Powder.


	4. The Awakening

"What did I do with those cucumbers?" Dr. Beutler muttered. "I bought three of them just last week, and now they've just… oh, here they are."

He took a cucumber from the hydrator, took two slices out of it, and put these on the salad.

It was, in truth, a rather impressive salad; Dr. Beutler – as has been intimated – liked his salads large and variegated. It contained spinach, cabbage, endive, and three different varieties of lettuce, to say nothing of the numerous chunks of tomato, carrot, celery, onion, parsnip, and eggplant (but no turnip), the dozen or so croutons, and the aforementioned cucumber slices.

All that remained, in Dr. Beutler's view, was to slather it in Italian dressing and sprinkle it lightly with the Powder of Life, and this he did. He then took the completed creation to the table, said a quick blessing, stuck a fork in a spinach leaf that had received a liberal amount of Powder, and brought it to his mouth.

And almost immediately spat it out again.

"Gah!" he exclaimed. "What is the matter with this stuff? It tastes like mothballs by itself, it tastes like a hair-care product with spinach – I shudder to think what it tasted like with turnips!"

He stared morosely at the salad for a minute or two, idly rearranging the cucumber slices and a ring of onion, so that it looked like a face staring up at him from the bowl.

Then, suddenly, he sat up straight. "Hang on a second," he said. "Yang would know!"

This Yang of whom he spoke was the receptionist at his podiatric office, and a passionate – in a less kind mood Dr. Beutler might have said _obsessive_ – watcher of commercials. If someone in the waiting room happened to quote a sentence from a nine-year-old Pampers advertisement, Yang would invariably deliver the following line, then glance around the room fiercely, as if daring someone to challenge her expertise.

This trait had never endeared her to Dr. Beutler before – although she was charming enough in all other situations to keep him from actually firing her – but now he looked upon it as a godsend. If anybody could identify an obscure salad topping that couldn't be used on turnips, it would be her.

He got up and hurried to the telephone, glanced at the slip of paper identifying the names and phone numbers of all his employees, and punched in the number listed under the scrawled name "Yang".

Click. "Hi, this is Yang," she said.

"Hello, Yang. This is Dr. Beutler…"

"Oh, no, what did I do now?" said Yang, a touch of dread in her voice.

"Nothing," Dr. Beutler hastened to assure her. "Nothing at all. I just wanted to ask a question. How does one use a salad topping known as Powder of Life?"

"When you invent it, you tell me," said Yang. "There isn't any such product at the moment."

"Yes, there is," Dr. Beutler insisted. "I have a bottle of it on my table as we speak."

Yang was polite, but firm. "If I haven't heard of your salad topping," she said, "it doesn't exist." There was no arrogance in her voice, merely the dispassionate tone of a person stating unquestionable fact.

It was a fact, moreover, that Dr. Beutler was unprepared to dispute. "Well, then," he said, "is there any other sort of product that one might be inclined to use on turnips?"

"Not that I can think of," Yang said. "Why?"

"Well, you see," said Dr. Beutler, "I found a bottle today when I was diving, and it said that the stuff inside was Powder of Life and shouldn't be used on turnips. I assumed it was a dressing of some kind, except it tastes even worse on salad than it does straight."

"Have you tried saying 'Weaugh, Teaugh, Peaugh'?" Yang enquired.

Dr. Beutler blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

Yang giggled. "Well," she explained, "the only Powder of Life I ever heard of was the stuff in the Oz books, where you sprinkled it on something, said 'Weaugh, Teaugh, Peaugh', and the thing came to life."

Dr. Beutler considered this. "Well, that's one way of doing it, I suppose."

"There was something else you did, too," said Yang. "Just a second…"

She put the phone down, and Dr. Beutler heard her leave the room, come back, and ruffle through some pages. "Okay, here we go," she said. "When you say 'Weaugh', you raise your left hand, and the pinkie finger should be sticking out. With 'Teaugh', it's the right hand, and you stick out the thumb. And when you say 'Peaugh', both hands should be in the air, and all the fingers should be extended."

There was a slight silence.

"Well," said Dr. Beutler finally. "Thank you."

"My pleasure," said Yang. "Of course, that's in the second book, _The Land of Oz_. In the fifth book, he mentions an old lady who brought her rug to life…"

"I'm hanging up now, Yang."

"…simply by sprinkling the powder on it and wishing it alive. And in the seventh book, Scraps and…"

Click.

Dr. Beutler walked back into the dining room. He stared at the bottle. He stared at the salad. He shrugged. And, feeling like a fool, he raised his left hand and shouted, "Weaugh!"

Then, feeling like a complete idiot, he raised his right hand and cried, "Teaugh!"

And finally, feeling like the most dunderheaded moron who ever stuck a needle into the metatarsal area, he raised both hands and yelled, "Peaugh!"

And the salad squirmed, yawned its onion mouth, glanced up at Dr. Beutler with a pair of cucumber slices, and said "Good morning!"


	5. Fathers and Sons

Dr. Beutler stood, rooted to the spot, staring at this misbegotten child of croutons and ignorance.

"I said 'Good morning'," the salad repeated, a trifle testily. "Surely, there is a proper response to that phrase?"

Dr. Beutler found voice. "It's evening," he said.

The salad seemed to consider this. "Well, I'm not sure whether that was the proper response," he said, "but I'll answer it anyway. Since I have just come to life, this is the earliest hour of my existence. By my calculation, that makes it morning."

This point had not occurred to Dr. Beutler, but he found himself willing to accept it.

"You seem very intelligent for something that just came to life," he said.

Insofar as it is possible for a creature with no shoulders to shrug, this is what the salad now did. "At the moment," he said, "I suppose I'm operating purely on instinct. If I'm doing well, that must mean my instincts are fairly good. You wouldn't happen to know what it is that constitutes my brain, would you?"

"Probably a chunk of eggplant or something," said Dr. Beutler, trying to remember all the ingredients that had gone into the creature's construction.

"Ah," said the salad. "Well, then, we must conclude that eggplants make very good brains."

"Yes, I guess so," said Dr. Beutler. "I'll try to remember that. I was always told that fish was the great brain food – but I've been eating fish for fifty-three years now, and I certainly don't feel any smarter."

"Well, then," said the salad, "I suppose you should try switching to eggplants."

"I suppose," said Dr. Beutler.

"Though not the eggplant composing my brain," said the salad. "That doesn't seem like a very good idea."

"No," Dr. Beutler murmured, "no, it doesn't…"

Suddenly he seemed to snap out of a daze. "Hang on a minute," he said. "What am I doing?"

"You're talking to me about eggplants," the salad reminded him. He was somewhat surprised that the doctor should have forgotten so soon, but put it down to his having inferior brains.

"Shut up!" Dr. Beutler snapped. "Oh, good Lord, my mother warned me this would happen. 'You shouldn't move to Miami, Ralph,' she said. 'Folks ain't quite right down there.' But, foolish youth that I was, I laughed at her warnings. And now what am I doing? I'm debating brain materials with a Caesar salad!"

"Yes, you are," said a distinctly feminine voice from the kitchen counter. "And some of us are feeling very left out."

Dr. Beutler whirled around. His Diet Pepsi bottle, the one that had held the Powder of Life, twitched its mouth in his direction, and the printed face of Queen Amidala smiled at him.

"Good morning, Daddy," she said.

* * *

Dr. Beutler sank into his chair. This, he felt, was the end. Soon, the vanilla extract would start talking to him, too… then the coffee cans, announcing that they had grounds for a lawsuit against him… and so on, until the men in white coats, if they still wore white coats, came to take him to the asylum, where he could spend a long and happy life debating politics with his lunch tray.

The salad, while nowhere near Dr. Beutler's level of mental anguish, was certainly confused. "Daddy?" he said. "Is he your father?"

"Of course he is," said the Pepsi bottle. "Somebody must have said the magic words that activated the Powder. I haven't met anyone since I was born except him and you – and it can't be you, since you couldn't do the finger thing. So he must be my father – and yours, too, now that I think of it."

The salad was suitably impressed. "My dear," he said, "I don't know what your brain is made of, but it must be infinitely superior to eggplant. Please, allow me to salute you."

It seemed that the Pepsi bottle blushed, although this would seem difficult for a black-and-white image to do. "Oh, no, no," she said. "I don't pretend to be any kind of great thinker. It's just that I'm made of Powder of Life – partially, anyway – so I can't help knowing something about how it works. Just like you can't help knowing how to move your leaves around."

The salad ruffled his lettuce a little self-consciously. Then a thought seemed to strike him. "Just a moment, though," he said. "If he's your father, and he's also my father, then that would make you… my sister!"

"Yes, I guess it would, wouldn't it?" The Pepsi bottle smiled. "Good morning, brother."

"How ya doin', sis?" said the salad, and laughed.

A low moan escaped Dr. Beutler. Here he had woken up this morning a perfectly respectable, childless bachelor, and now he seemed to have developed family ties that even Brigham Young would have found unorthodox.

The Pepsi bottle looked concerned. "Something wrong, Daddy?" she asked.

When she put it that way, Dr. Beutler found it very difficult to express his pent-up emotions. "Problem?" he murmured. "No, no problem. I just… um… I'll need some time to sort things out." He got up to leave the room.

The bottle nodded. "Okay, fine," she said. "Just one thing before you go."

"What's that?" said Dr. Beutler.

"What's my name?"

Dr. Beutler blinked. This aspect of the thing hadn't even crossed his mind. "Um… doesn't it say on the label?"

The face of Natalie Portman squinted up at the legend above her head. "Well," the bottle said, "it says 'Queen Amidala' right here, but…" She shrugged. "I don't know, somehow I just don't feel like an Amidala, if you know what I mean."

Dr. Beutler rather thought he did. After a moment's thought, he said, "How about Amy?"  
The bottle smiled. "Yes," she said, "that's much better."

"Good," said Dr. Beutler.

"And what about me?" the salad demanded. "I trust you don't intend to leave me filed away as 'the fellow with the eggplant brain'."

In fact, Dr. Beutler had been beginning to think of the salad in just this way, but he quickly reframed his thoughts. "How about…" he began, and then he paused. He wasn't really sure what name was appropriate to a salad, except for the obvious one… and that was really such a terribly obvious one…

Reluctantly, he said, "How about Caesar?"

The salad considered this gravely. "That should be satisfactory," he said at last.

"Wonderful," said Dr. Beutler. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed."


	6. Confessions

"Are you sure about this, Mr. Darrall?" Ozma asked.

Fol made no reply, but continued to gaze fixedly upward.

"Mr. Darrall?" Ozma repeated.

Fol pointed upward. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but is this by any chance a ceiling?"

Ozma glanced at the Scarecrow, who shrugged.

"Yes," she said, "it is."

"How utterly remarkable," murmured Fol.

"Yes, Mr. Darrall," said the Princess, "we are very proud of our ceiling. Now, you said that the witch…"

"Oh, yes," said Fol. "She had a ceiling, too, you know."

Ozma sighed. "Really?"

"Yes, indeed," said Fol. "Yours is much finer, however."

"Thank you," said Ozma. "But tell me about the witch."

"Well…" Fol thought very hard for a moment. "She was orange."

"Orange?" Ozma repeated, surprised.

Fol nodded. "Yes. Orange hair, orange skin, and orange clothes. Not her ceiling, though. Her ceiling was purple."

Ozma turned to the Scarecrow. "Is there an orange witch living in the Gillikin Country?" she enquired.

The Scarecrow nodded. "Her name is Ozara," he said. "A very strange woman, with an extraordinary interest in the lands outside Oz."

Ozma looked thoughtful. "It would probably be best to summon her," she said, "and find out what her plans were for the Powder she brewed."

Though, as things turned out, this was unnecessary, for, even as she said this, a loud explosion occurred outside the door of the Great Throne Room, and Ozara the Orange walked in.

She walked with a jaunty air, as though all the armies and powers of the Emerald City were nothing to her. In the case of the armies, she considered this literally true, as the Army of Oz was well known to be a single soldier with a pathological fear of women, but she was not foolish enough to fancy herself immune to the considerable magic at Ozma's disposal. Nevertheless, fortune favored the bold, and she was banking heavily on its favor in her little escapade.

Behind her, all equally calm, came the Nameless Man (with the air of one who knew that his name would never appear on a police warrant), Pliny the Ape (with the air of one who knew that the jails in Oz are actually pretty cushy places), and Voorspoogel (with the air of one who knew that all places of confinement, to a mind capable of grasping Truth, are equally unreal).

Ozma and the Scarecrow were rendered momentarily speechless at their quarry's prescience (not to mention nerve), and it was left to Ozara to break the silence.

"Evening, Ozma, my pretty," she said. "Dear me, it's been a while since I dropped by, hasn't it? How's the little Pumpkinhead?"

Ozma hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to respond to this.

"Oh, but forgive me," said Ozara. "I haven't introduced you. This," she said, motioning to her simian companion, "is Pliny…"

Pliny shot Ozma a "V for Victory" sign.

"…and Voorspoogel…"

Voorspoogel acknowledged his girl Ruler with a brief nod.

"…and this," said Ozara, indicating the Nameless Man, "is Jack."

The Nameless Man arched an eyebrow in surprise, but said nothing. To do so would have been to acknowledge a connection between the name and his person. The Scarecrow, however, was under no such ideological constraints.

"Jack?" he said. "I thought his name was Ernest."

"Yes, that's right," said Ozara. "You see, he's Jack in town, and Ernest in the country."

The Scarecrow was silent for a time. "My brains must not be in the best condition today," he said finally. "I can see no reason for anyone's name to change from place to place."

"Don't worry about it," Pliny advised him. "I can't see a reason for anything Ozara does."

Ozma decided that this would be a good time to change the subject. "Ozara," she said, "have you been brewing Powder of Life in your hut for the past six years?"

"Oh, yes," said Ozara.

This was not the answer Ozma had expected. She had always thought that, when wicked people committed crimes, they invariably lied about it afterward. The idea that anyone could be so frank – and perhaps, Ozma thought, looking at Ozara's face, even pleased – about breaking the law had never crossed her mind.

"You realize what a wicked thing that was to do?" she said.

"Something of the kind did occur to me," Ozara admitted.

"Although," Voorspoogel interjected, "I should warn you that to view the creation of a vehicle of germination as a perversion of the natural order is to commit a grievous error. True perversion consists in…"

He broke off here – not because he had no more to say, but because Ozara had kicked him in the back.

"Not now, Voorspoogel," she said. "Some other time. Right now, our beloved girl Ruler wants to know how to reclaim the bottle of Powder, thereby preserving civilization. Isn't that right, Your Highness?" she said, turning in Ozma's direction.

This had not, in fact, been Ozma's primary concern until Ozara had mentioned it, but she now saw the advantages of such an action.

"It is, indeed," she said. "How can it be done?"

"A-ha," said Ozara, who in fact had no idea, but was willing to bluff till Kingdom come. "You must gather together all the persons who have been brought to life by the Powder. The harmonization of their magical energies should be sufficient to pinpoint any amount of loose powder on the planet. I shall then toss this potion –" here she pulled a small vial of green potion from her handbag –"into the air, and the Powder of Life – along with its container, if any – shall be summoned to the room in which you stand."

Ozma was struck by the elegance of this solution. "How ingenious!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, isn't it?" said Ozara, realizing this for the first time.

"Let me see," murmured Ozma. "We must have Jack Pumpkinhead, the Sawhorse, and the Gump… and then there's Dr. Pipt's creations, the Patchwork Girl and the Glass Cat… oh, and there's the Blue Bear Rug."

"Exactly," said Ozara. "Also I seem to remember hearing something about a phonograph…"

"Oh, yes, of course," said Ozma. "Thank you."

"Not at all," said Ozara, curtsying slightly. "And now, if you'll excuse us, my associates and I have to find a place to sleep… at least, three of us do. Voorspoogel doesn't have to worry about it, of course."

Ozma blinked. "Are you staying here?" she asked.

"Of course!" said Ozara, surprised. "The potion will not work in any hands save those of the woman who brewed it – and I go nowhere without my entourage. Well, so long. Farewell. Auf wiedersehn. A-"

"Just a moment," said Ozma. "You forget that you and your friends are convicted criminals. Therefore, you must go to jail until all the Powder people arrive."

Ozara considered pointing out that Ozma had never read her her rights, and that her confession was therefore invalid, but she decided against it. Considering what the jails of Oz were like, it hardly seemed worth the energy.

"Well, I suppose that's all right," she said, "provided that I get a cell far away from Voorspoogel's."

"As you wish," said Ozma. "Soldier!" The Soldier with the Green Whiskers came running. "Please take these four to Tollydiggle, would you?"

The Soldier saluted, and escorted Ozara and Co. from the Royal Throne Room in a manner that might have been considered almost stern if his hands hadn't been shaking so hard that Ozara had to carry his gun.

"I say, Madam Witch!" Fol called out as they went by. "Have you seen this ceiling of theirs? Breathtaking, isn't it?"

Ozara smiled nastily. "Not as breathtaking as some things," she said, leaving Fol to wonder at her meaning.


	7. Great Expectations

Author's note: I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but I don't own Diet Pepsi or Queen Amidala, either. They are the respective property of Pepsi-Cola, Inc., and Lucasfilm, Ltd. And now that decorum has been satisfied, let us proceed to…

**CHAPTER 7**

Dr. Beutler eased the door open. "Caesar?" he called. "Amy?"

"Daddy!" Amy cried. "There was the coolest program on the radio today. It's about this guy named Amos, and this other guy named Andy, and how they and the Kingfish cook the books for their…"

"Never mind about the Kingfish's cookbooks," interrupted Caesar. "Tell him about 'Three Hours with the Four Seasons'."

"Oh, sure, them," said Amy, with the dismissive tone of one who has weighed the Four Seasons in the balance and found them to be no great shakes. "And after that, there was a special on how they make glass – did you know that this window is basically just frozen sand?"

Dr. Beutler breathed a silent prayer of thanks to the gaggle of bored college students who had decided one day that radio stations with clearly defined themes (Rock, Country, Propaganda, and so on) just weren't any fun, and had set their drug-addled minds to developing a radio station where you could here absolutely anything, including sheep bleating for half an hour. Whatever faults WSGM 129.0 possessed – and doubtless they were legion – it had ensured that his two young protégés were getting a catholic education.

"So," he said. "The radio station was a good choice? I should maybe leave it on tomorrow?"

"You have to," said Amy decidedly. "Otherwise we'll miss the solution to today's Riddle of the Day, and we'll never know what movie title means 'Soldier, bounty hunter, abortionist, et cetera'."

"Which would be a tragedy, I'm sure," said Dr. Beutler. "Listen, I checked at the library today, and the girl behind the desk said that the Powder of Life only appeared in two of the Oz books. They didn't have _The Patchwork Girl of Oz_ on file, but I managed to check out the other one, and I thought perhaps we could sift it for information." He pulled _The Land of Oz_ out of his suit pocket and tossed it onto the dining-room table.

"Was she pretty?" Amy asked.

Dr. Beutler blinked. "Was who pretty?"

"The girl behind the desk."

"What difference does that make?" Dr. Beutler demanded.

"It made a lot of difference to Amos and Andy," Amy said. She paused. "Well, to Andy, anyway. I don't know about Amos – he wasn't on much, considering that the show was named after him."

"Most likely the producers didn't think 'Kingfish 'n' Andy' was a very elegant title," Caesar commented.

"Probably."

Dr. Beutler sighed. "All right, you win," he said. "Yes, Amy, the girl behind the desk was pretty. And now that your thirst for information on that subject has been slaked, perhaps we can begin."

He sat down, picked up _The Land of Oz_, and began to read aloud. He was not an exciting reader, but the story was very exciting indeed, especially since everyone in the room knew that it was true. Caesar and Amy listened with bated breath, only interrupting now and then as circumstances warranted.

When Jack Pumpkinhead was brought to life, for instance, both of them cheered loudly. Dr. Beutler shushed them briefly, and went on.

When Jack took his wild ride on the Sawhorse, Amy started humming the _William Tell_ Overture – another bit of learning she had picked up from WSGM. Dr. Beutler gave her a look, and went on.

And when the Gump recounted his last memories of life as a game animal, Caesar cried, "Stop! I have it! Thanks be to God, who has given me an eggplant brain!"

This time Dr. Beutler did not go on. Instead, he shut the book with an audible _thwap!_ and enquired, in his iciest tones, what Caesar meant by interrupting the good Gump in such a fashion.

"Forgive me," said Caesar. "It is merely that I have had an inspiration. You say that when the Gump was brought to life, he remembered his previous existence?"

Dr. Beutler opened the book again and reviewed the page. "Yes," he said, "that seems to be precisely what I say."

"In that case," said Caesar, "what about dinosaurs?"

Dr. Beutler looked puzzled. "Dinosaurs?"

But Amy had already caught fire. "Of course!" she said. "If you brought a dinosaur back to life, it could tell you all about what it was like to live in dinosaur times. Scientists would learn all sorts of things they think they need to know, and we could make millions of dollars and… and…" She hesitated, trying to think what a Pepsi bottle could do with millions of dollars. "Well, anyway, we could do something."

"Um… where did you two learn about dinosaurs?" Dr. Beutler asked, trying to ignore the visions called up by Amy's words.

Caesar and Amy just looked at him.

"Oh, of course," he said. "Silly me."

"We should use a Deinonychus," said Amy to Caesar. "They had the best song."

"Naturally."

_"Deinonychus!"_ Amy sang. _"Da da da da!"_

_"With his powerful jaw…"_ Caesar intoned.

_"Deinonychus! Da da da da!"_

_"With his terrible claw!"_

Dr. Beutler couldn't help thinking that, if that was the best song on WSGM's dinosaur program, the ancient saurians must not have inspired any of the great melodists. Still, when _National Geographic_ came calling, they wouldn't be asking about Amy's taste in music…

"All right, then," he said. "Get some sleep – or whatever," he added, since he had learned early on that his charges could neither sleep nor eat, "and tomorrow, after I get off work, the three of us will pay the natural history museum a visit."


	8. Invisible Man

"Mrs. Feodoroff has scheduled an appointment for next Tuesday," said Yang on the following afternoon.

"Good," said Dr. Beutler abstractedly.

He was thinking that he should have rolled down the windows in his car. He had left Caesar in there, in a large Ziploc bag, and when food is left in a sealed car during a summer day in Miami, it doesn't always emerge from the ordeal unscathed.

"And Lyla Heien – remember her? – needs her ankle brace adjusted," Yang added.

"Okay."

He had left food to spoil before, of course, but he had never before risked involuntary manslaughter charges by doing so.

"So Jeff Clark's appointment will have to be postponed until next Saturday."

"Fine."

On the other hand, what should he have done? He also had a priceless chemical compound in the car. Should she have been left exposed to the hordes of petty thieves wandering the Miami streets? Assuredly not.

Yang ran her eyes over her clipboard again. "Everything else it looks like you know about already," she said.

"Mm."

And besides, he had left the car running, so they could listen to the radio – it was probably wreaking havoc with his battery, but he was finding it harder and harder to resist Amy's pleas – and he couldn't remember turning off the air conditioner, so Caesar was probably quite cool after all.

"So," Yang concluded, "I guess we're done here."

"Wonderful," said Dr. Beutler. With his attention no longer elsewhere, he had actually comprehended this statement. "I'll be seeing you on Monday, then."

"G'day, Mr. Bond."

"Ta-ta, Moneypenny."

* * *

As things turned out, Caesar and Amy were not only safe in the doctor's car; they appeared to be having the time of their lives. The radio had pooped out several times while Dr. Beutler was inside, and they had had to invoke the aid of various passersby to turn it back on again. Fortunately, as they had had the good sense to stay as still as any ordinary salad and pop bottle, they had left their benefactors with vague impressions of invisible spirits guarding the Chevrolet, which tended to discourage the possibility of theft.

This approach, however, turned out not to be without its risks, as Dr. Beutler was informed when the three of them were reunited.

"The last person we spoke to," Caesar said to him, "told us that he was the president of the Miami Rationalist Society, and he refused to believe that spirits wanted to listen to WSGM. He said it would be contrary to the laws of Nature."

Dr. Beutler considered this. "Well, that's a point of view, I suppose."

"I didn't know Nature had laws," Amy reflected. "Who passes them? God?"

Dr. Beutler shrugged. "Probably."

"But God's a spirit," said Amy, who had learned this from WSGM's resident radio preacher, the Rev. Thomas Kilgannon. "So if you believe in God, why can't you believe in other spirits? And if a spirit makes the laws of Nature, how can spirits be contrary to them?"

"Amy, you'll make a great apologist someday," said Dr. Beutler.

"Anyway," Caesar continued, "it was clear to me that the President would not believe any explanation of his situation that did not correspond to ordinary human experience; so I told him I was his conscience."

"Ah," said Dr. Beutler. "Something you picked up from 'Amos 'n' Andy', no doubt."

"Exactly," said Caesar. "That also failed to persuade him. Then Amy said to him that we were a couple of people that he couldn't see, and we wanted to listen to the radio, and would he please turn it on before she called the police."

"And then what did he do?" Dr. Beutler enquired.

"Turned it on."

Dr. Beutler smiled. "Well, chalk another one up to the direct approach."

"Speaking of which," Amy piped up, "is this the direct approach to the natural history museum? Because it looks like you're just going back home."

Dr. Beutler started. In truth, he had completely forgotten about the Deinonychus scheme of the past night; and the more he thought about it now, the more he considered that it ought to be forgotten.

"Um… Amy, honey," he said, "maybe it's not such a good idea to bring a vicious, predatory dinosaur to life in downtown Miami. People might not appreciate the gesture, and…" He stopped, uncomfortably aware that Amy was staring at him, wide-eyed.

"But, Daddy," she protested, "you promised!"

"Now hold on," said Dr. Beutler. "I don't recall ever saying the word 'promise'. What I said…"

"You said, 'Tomorrow, after I get off work, the three of us will pay the natural history museum a visit,'" Amy quoted, glaring at him with all the fury a betrayed pop bottle can muster. "Those were your exact words."

"True," commented Caesar helpfully.

Dr. Beutler stared helplessly at his "daughter". He knew there was a very good reason why they shouldn't be bringing Deinonychi to life, but somehow he couldn't come up with it when Amy was looking at him like that.

"Oh, all right," he muttered. "Don't say I didn't warn you, though."

And he made an illegal U-turn and headed for the museum.

* * *

As Dr. Beutler walked into the Hall of Dinosaurs, carrying Caesar, Amy, and a copy of Dinosaurs Rediscovered that he had picked up at the museum gift shop, he heard a little gasp from Amy and felt a shiver of delight run through Caesar's Ziploc bag. Evidently, dinosaurs had just become more than an intellectual proposition to them.

"Wow," Amy breathed. "These things actually lived in the world, once upon a time? Our world, not Oz?"

"Yes, they did," said Dr. Beutler. "Many, many years ago."

"But now," Caesar said, "there are none that remain."

"That's right," said Dr. Beutler. "Now they're just a bunch of rocks that scientists fight over."

Amy made an odd sound, as if she were trying to choke back a sob. "Oh, Daddy," she said, "we have to bring one of them to life. They… deserve it."

Dr. Beutler, looking at the great fossilized skeletons, was half inclined to agree; although he still couldn't shake that feeling of foreboding.

"A-ha," said Caesar suddenly. "There's one."

"One what?" said Dr. Beutler.

"A Deinonychus," said Caesar. "There, about fifteen yards away. You see, it has the claw."

Sure enough, right between a display case of ammonites and some rather pathetic Scolosaurus vertebrae, there was a nearly intact skeleton of a Deinonychus. It was mounted in a standing position, as if it were catching the scent of its prey on the wind.

Dr. Beutler sauntered over to it a bit too casually, picked Amy up in his right hand, and placed Caesar and the book on the ammonite case.

"Ready, Amy?" he whispered.

"Do it," Amy said, her voice slightly muffled by his hand.

Dr. Beutler pulled back his arm and snapped Amy forward six times. Six sprays of Powder alit on the dinosaur's skeleton, covering every part from its nose to the tip of its tail.

"All right, let's see if I remember how this works," Dr. Beutler murmured. He placed Amy on the case with Caesar and the book, made the prescribed hand movements, and cried, "Weaugh!... Teaugh!... Peaugh!"

For a moment, it seemed as though nothing had happened. Then, to the astonishment of the other museum-goers and the delight of Caesar and Amy, the Deinonychus turned its skull and glanced around the Hall of Dinosaurs.

It surveyed the other skeletons, the paintings, the models, and (especially) the crowd. Whether it felt any emotion – curiosity, or wonder, or fear – was impossible for an observer to say; the expression on its granite skull did not vary an inch.

Then, with one sudden movement, it jerked up its arms and tail and pulled out the metal poles that had been keeping it in place, and, with a swiftness remarkable in a creature so long dead, leapt from its display platform and onto the tiled floor.

Caesar coughed. "Er… Father," he said, a tone of uncertainty in his voice, "I have just thought of something."

"What is it, Caesar?" said Dr. Beutler.

"You know how, when you have gone a long time without putting things in your mouth, you begin to feel… I believe the word is hungry?"

Dr. Beutler nodded.

"Well," said Caesar, "if you had been dead for over 100 million years, and then were suddenly brought back to life… would that cause you to feel hungry?"

Dr. Beutler glanced back at the Deinonychus. Then he grabbed Caesar, Amy, and Dinosaurs Rediscovered, and ran from the Hall of Dinosaurs along with the rest of the panicking crowd.


	9. Seize the Day

It would be pleasant to report that Dr. Beutler managed to carry Caesar and Amy safely into the street, where he then called the police and notified them that a large predatory dinosaur had come to life in the Natural History Museum while carefully concealing his role in this event. That, however, would not be realistic; and this chronicler is, of course, wedded to realism.

Imagine that you were a forty-something Miami podiatrist whose major form of exercise, for the past eighteen years, had involved rather more drifting around underwater than actually swimming. Imagine further that you were suddenly called upon to flee from a vicious carnosaur while carrying in your arms a hefty volume of paleontology, a Ziploc bag containing an oversized salad, and a violently squirming Diet Pepsi bottle whose contents must on no account be spilled. Would you have succeeded?

Of course not. It was inevitable that something would fall. Ideally, this something would have been Dinosaurs Rediscovered; in reality, it turned out to be Caesar.

Neither Dr. Beutler nor Amy was quite sure how it happened. A movement of Dr. Beutler's arms, a brief sound like "Oop!" and Caesar was no longer among those present.

When Amy realized what had happened, she was naturally a trifle distressed. "Daddy!" she said, a little too loudly. "You dropped Caesar!"

"I know," Dr. Beutler panted.

"We have to go back and get him!"

"Amy, honey," said Dr. Beutler, "we can't go back and get him. If we started heading toward the dinosaur, people would notice us, and we can't afford to have them know about you."

"But... but..."

"Relax, sweetie, he'll be okay." Though Dr. Beutler wasn't 100 percent sure of this. "After all, he's a salad, and Deinonychus was a meat-eater; and besides, no one ever dies in the Land of Oz, remember?"

"But we're not in the Land of Oz!" Amy wailed. "We're in Miami!"

Dr. Beutler shushed her, glanced around nervously, and darted into a small alcove to the left.

It was a nice enough room, with several appealing murals documenting the Theory of Evolution, but its only resident was a dark-haired young woman who appeared to be communing with the spheres via her Walkman. If circumstances had been more congenial, Dr. Beutler might have held out for a completely empty room in which to talk to Amy, but this would do.

"Amy," he said, "do you realize what would happen if we went back to get Caesar?"

Amy hesitated. "Um… we'd get eaten?"

"Probably," Dr. Beutler agreed, "but let's say we didn't. Let's say that, against all odds, we manage to wrestle your brother out of that thing's jaws without getting killed in the process. How many people do you think would notice?"

"A lot," Amy admitted.

"Everyone in this museum, I should think," said Dr. Beutler. "They'd come up to congratulate me, they'd see you, they'd see the Powder, they'd realize that fossilized dinosaurs don't just come to life on their own, and all heck would break loose."

"Why?" Amy demanded. "What's wrong with other people knowing about Caesar and me? What kind of damage can a salad and a bottle do to Western civilization?"

"Amy, think about it," said Dr. Beutler. "How many doses are left in you? Five?" He held her up to the light and squinted. "Six, at the very most."

Amy squirmed. "Daddy, you know I don't like people looking through me."

"Sorry," said Dr. Beutler, dropping her back down to waist level. "But my point is, those six doses are all the Powder of Life there is in the world. Everybody who heard about you would want one of those doses. Little girls would want to bring their Raggedy Ann dolls to life. NASA would want to bring its space probes to life. Palestinian terrorists would want to build marble suicide bombers who can survive the explosions in their backpacks."

Amy giggled.

"It's not funny," Dr. Beutler said earnestly. "People would fight wars over you, sweetie – and once they had you, they wouldn't even care about you. They'd use you as a tool, the same way they'd use a hot-glue gun; and when you were empty and they didn't need you anymore, I wouldn't put it past them to return you for deposit."

Amy blanched, which is hard to do on a white label, but she managed. "Really?"

Dr. Beutler nodded. "You have no idea, Amy," he said, "how hard it would be for the average human being to treat a pop bottle like a person. Most human beings don't even treat other human beings like people – especially not when there's power to be gained."

"And I can give people power?" said Amy.

"Certainly."

"Then how come I can't give you enough power to save Caesar?"

Dr. Beutler hesitated; he hadn't thought about it that way. "Well, let's see… I suppose if we brought something big and powerful to life, it could wrestle Caesar away from the Deinonychus…"

Amy nodded enthusiastically. "Sure!" she said. "That big Shantungosaurus model we saw on our way in could do it; and it wasn't alive before, so it'll listen to us because it won't know what else it ought to do. Daddy, that's perfect!"

Dr. Beutler wasn't so sure – he wondered what the museum authorities would say if they saw two of their prize exhibits duking it out in the Hall of Dinosaurs – but he also realized that, if he failed to bring the model to life and Caesar was later found dead, Amy would forever hold him responsible; and there wasn't much the museum authorities could do to him that would be worse than that.

"Okay," he said. "We're going to have to work fast, though."

"That's your job, Daddy," said the nearly immobile Amy with a grin.

"Um… right."

Dr. Beutler nestled Amy under his arm and took three steps toward the doorway; and he would have taken more if the young lady with the Walkman hadn't chosen this moment to pull a blackjack out of her purse and knock him unconscious.

* * *

A few words about this young lady are perhaps in order. She was a 22-year-old city clerk named Dawn Teuling, and she had carried a blackjack since the age of 19, when she had taken up amateur burglary to support her elderly aunt and guardian, Mary Thomas. Mrs. Thomas had died in 1997, but Dawn still burgled occasionally, because she enjoyed it.

In fact, Dawn enjoyed just about anything that involved secrecy and intrigue. When she was twelve, she had been in the habit of checking out perfectly innocent library books and surreptitiously sneaking them under her clothing; when she was twenty-one, she had joined the Rosicrucians, only to resign from it in disgust two months later when she discovered that the Rosicrucians didn't actually know the secrets of the universe. Now that she actually was an amateur criminal, of course, she felt less need for such secondary secrecies, but she still retained a few odd habits of this nature – such as spying on other people's conversations while pretending to listen to her Walkman.

Usually, the clandestine messages she intercepted in this way were along the lines of "Don't forget to pick up the mayonnaise, honey". However, when a forty-year-old man ran into the Evolution Room and started talking to a pop bottle, Dawn intuited that she was about to hear something more interesting.

She did. Like Yang, Dawn had been a passionate devotee of the Oz books as a girl, and the suggestion that there were six doses of Powder of Life floating around southern Florida had engaged her imagination in precisely the manner that Dr. Beutler had predicted. (The fact that Dr. Beutler bore a strong resemblance to her idiot boss at the Department of Motor Vehicles only convinced her further that he oughtn't to be permitted to keep a stranglehold on the marvelous substance.) Consequently, when Dr. Beutler and Amy started to make a break for the museum lobby, Dawn realized that she needed to act quickly, and the rest followed with Homeric inevitability.

Once Dr. Beutler was spread-eagled on the Evolution Room floor, however, Dawn permitted herself a few moments of reflection. As her victim had said, it wasn't Amy she wanted, and she was a bit queasy at the idea of becoming a kidnapper. (Her conscience was selective, but fervent.) On the other hand, she had to carry the Powder in something, and the only container she had was a half-filled bottle of nail polish, which was singularly ill-suited to Powder-of-Life transference.

Luckily (or, given later events, perhaps not so luckily), Dawn happened at this juncture to remember that, when the Gump had been disassembled, its head had remained perfectly sentient, as demonstrated by its conversation with Dorothy in book four. Ergo, where Powder of Life was concerned, the soul was apparently extricable from the greater part of the body.

Acting on this inspiration, Dawn extracted Amy (whom shock had rendered motionless) from Dr. Beutler's clenched hand and walked briskly to the museum lobby. There she reached back into her purse, pulled out a pearl-handled knife, and carefully sliced off Amy's label.

She glanced around to make sure that the room was empty (which it was; the only organic residents of the museum were Dawn and the unconscious Dr. Beutler, all others having long since evacuated), then carefully knelt down, placed the label on the floor, and whispered, "Your name's Amy?"

Amy, terrified, made the slightest of nods.

"Okay, listen, Amy," said Dawn. "Your father's probably going to wake up in about half an hour. When he comes in here, give him a shout and he ought to notice you, since you kind of stand out on these tiles." (The lobby floor was paved in dark blue stone.) "I'll probably be able to return your body in a day or two, so hang in there until then, OK?

"OK," Amy managed to whisper.

"Sorry about Caesar," Dawn added. She had no idea who Caesar was, but his plight had seemed important to Amy, and Dawn had been raised to be sympathetic to people who had suffered loss.

"Thanks," said Amy.

"Anytime."

These formalities concluded, Dawn stood up, picked up the unlabelled bottle at her feet, and, with a final nod to the floor, shoved open the museum door and walked out into the balmy Florida afternoon.

Amy lay on the floor for a few long minutes, all manner of emotions surging through her. Finally, though, one feeling became uppermost, and she smiled.

"See, Daddy?" she said. "Some humans can treat pop bottles like people."

She was an incurable optimist.


	10. Lost Illusions

While all this was going on, the Princess Ozma and all those Ozites whom the Powder had brought to life were gathered in Ozma's Royal Throne Room, around a large table of blue marble. This table was one of Ozma's most prized possessions; it had been given to her as a gift from the ruler of the Munchkins, whose finest craftsman had worked for over three months on its various ornate carvings, particularly the four stylized figures of female Tottenhots that served as the table's supports. (One of the nice things about living in an uncivilized country is that you don't have to worry much about political correctness.)

At the head of the table, naturally, was Ozma, sitting on a miniature jade throne with the Blue Bear Rug draped over the back. At the other end of the table, Ozara was sitting in a green wicker chair, her face carefully expressionless but seeming in danger at any moment of developing a severe smirk.

(Ozma, naturally, would have preferred that someone else assist her, but Ozara had turned out to be the only enchanter in the Land of Oz who was versed in – or, indeed, even aware of – the Powder-of-Life-Reclaiming Incantation.)

At Ozma's immediate right sat Jack Pumpkinhead, while at her left stood the famous Sawhorse. These two, as the reader will possibly remember, had been Ozma's companions long before she had been Ruler of Oz (in fact, before she had been Ozma), and their feelings toward each other were of the most affectionate kind.

Next to Jack Pumpkinhead sat Scraps the Patchwork Girl, perhaps the most singular of all the persons present. Her personality was as colorful and variegated as her cloth exterior, for her brains had been hastily mixed together by a young Munchkin named Ojo without the least regard for the niceties of chemistry. Most people, when first meeting her, came away with the impression that she was slightly mad, but her friends knew that she was also brave, clever, honest, and a boon companion.

Across from Scraps, the phonograph Vic Edison was standing on his own small table. Vic and Scraps had been brought to life at the same time, but whereas Scraps had gone on to become a trusted counselor of Princess Ozma and one of the Emerald City's outstanding citizens, Vic had spent his life wandering the roads of Oz in a fruitless quest to find someone who appreciated bad Dixieland jazz. Even in a fairyland, fortune is fickle.

On top of the table sat Bungle the Glass Cat, with an air of supreme hauteur, and the Head of the Gump, with as much of an air as supreme hauteur as it is possible to have when one is propped up on a table by a wooden board. (This is not to say, of course, that the Gump could have been much more haughty had he been attached to the sofa that had once served as his body. Being the Gump is just a generally humbling experience.)

Also in attendance were Pliny, the Nameless Man, and Voorspoogel, who, since they had nothing in particular to contribute to the proceedings beyond moral support, occupied their time by making faces at the Wizard of Oz, who was serving as security guard in case Ozara attempted to escape by magic.

"My dear friends," said Ozma, straining the definition a bit to include Vic, "you have been summoned here for a vital task. The witch Ozara the Orange has sent a bottle of Powder of Life into the Outside World, and your combined efforts are needed to retrieve it. Madam Ozara knows of an obscure spell for this sort of thing, but it will only work if all of you cooperate with her."

Jack Pumpkinhead raised his hand. "Excuse me, Mother," he said, "but if Madam Ozara was the one who sent the bottle to the Outer World in the first place, why would she want to bring it back?"

Ozma hesitated; this was precisely what she had been wondering for several days. Ozara, however, screwed in her spectacles and stared at Jack with an expression of disbelief.

"Good grief, Pumpkinhead," she said, "don't you know anything about terrorism? You don't actually harm anything; you just instill terror. That's where the name comes from."

Jack thought about that for a minute. "Why would you do something just to frighten someone?" he asked.

"It's a way of getting attention," said Ozara. "We terrorists are very insecure. Now, if there are no more questions, we can begin."

* * *

The Powder-of-Life-Reclaiming Incantation turned out to require an elaborate and individualized invocation of each taxonomic phylum, expressed in the most florid and time-consuming language Ozara could concoct. ("O Platyhelminthes, flattest of worms, may thy light-sensitive spot view our labors with compassion…")

After about half an hour of this, Ozma grew restless and got up from the table, reasoning that since she had not been brought to life with the Powder, her immediate presence was not required. Ozara appeared to concur with this, since she made no move to stop her.

Ozma wandered over to the wall where the Wizard of Oz was standing and sat down on the floor beside him. The two of them watched Ozara babble to rotifers for a few minutes. Then the Wizard cleared his throat.

"You know," he said, "that wasn't much of an explanation that Madam Ozara gave to Jack just now."

Ozma shrugged. "Madam Ozara's explanations never are," she said.

"True," said the Wizard thoughtfully. "In many ways, she reminds me of myself when I was a humbug."

Ozma looked up, surprised. "Do you think Madam Ozara is a humbug?"

"Oh, no," said the Wizard. "There's plenty of evidence that she can do magic – that turnip, if nothing else." He grimaced slightly as he nodded to Voorspoogel. "When I was a humbug, though, and ruling the Emerald City, I frequently would be called upon to perform a spell, or grant a magical gift, or something else I couldn't do. I usually pretended that something impossible had to be done before I could do it; and so I was still thought of as a great wizard, but I never actually had to do any magic."

Ozma frowned. "And you think that Madam Ozara is doing the same thing?"

"Exactly," said the Wizard. "Since Ozara has been caught doing magic unlawfully, you ought to make her drink from the Fountain of Oblivion, or something of that sort; unless, of course, she knows something that you need to find out. A spell, perhaps."

Ozma's eyes widened. "The Powder-Reclaiming Incantation…" she murmured.

"Yes, that would be the sort of thing," said the Wizard. "She causes a problem, and then pretends that only she can fix it; and if she's any good as a humbug, it will take her years to fix it properly. Perhaps she'll bring back the bottle, but not the Powder that was in it. She still has something in mind, anyway; you can count on that."

Ozma looked crestfallen. "Then how will we bring the Powder back?" she said. "If Madam Ozara's spell doesn't work…"

"That is the weak spot in her plan," said the Wizard. "She needs you to think that only her spell will bring back the Powder; but really there is another form of magic, right here in this room, that would work just as well." And he pointed a finger at Ozma's waist, around which was wrapped the Nome King's Magic Belt.

Ozma blinked, then laughed aloud. "Of course!" she exclaimed. "How foolish I have been! I could have brought the Powder back to Oz at any time – and I never thought of it!"

The Wizard nodded. "Yes," he said, "Madam Ozara is a skillful illusionist indeed."

But Ozma was no longer listening. She had closed her eyes, and was even now giving the Belt its command.


	11. The Trial

"Thank you for choosing Burger King," said the voice over the intercom. "Would you like to order a Value Meal today?"

"No, thank you," said Dawn, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the honking horn behind her. Separated from its brain, the bottle that had previously been Amy was squirming wildly, so that Dawn, to keep the Powder from spilling, had to keep her right hand firmly clenched around the bottle's mouth; this required her to drive with her left hand and right knee, which was not making her popular with other drivers. Probably she should have just skipped Burger King and waited to test the Powder until she returned home, but Dawn Teuling had never been known for her patience.

"Could I have a Kid's Meal," she said, "with, um, a cheeseburger, no mustard, and a chocolate milkshake to drink?"

"Sure," said the voice. "Anything for yourself?"

Dawn was vaguely irritated at that. What made this woman think that adults never ordered Kid's Meals for themselves? Even granting that her current motivation was an uncommon one, did nostalgia count for nothing in the modern world?

"That's all," she said.

"$1.99 at the next window," said the woman.

Dawn laboriously pulled up to the next window, paid the cashier, and laboriously pulled up to the next window after that, wondering idly why one couldn't just pay and get one's food at the same window. Corporate America's commitment to efficiency, she reflected, was a fluctuating principle at best.

"Good morning!" said the waitress at the second window. She was a plump, red-haired woman, cheerful, bubbly, and totally devoid of any form of guile – just the sort of person that Dawn instinctively disliked.

"Well, technically, it's afternoon," she mumbled.

"So it is," the waitress agreed. "Dear me, isn't the day just flying by!"

"It was," Dawn said, "until about fifteen seconds ago."

The waitress frowned. She wasn't quite following Dawn's line of thought, but she gathered that this particular customer was not in the mood for polite chit-chat.

She picked up the Kid's Meal box and leaned over to hand it to Dawn, and then noticed that the back seat of Dawn's Ford Escort was suspiciously devoid of kids.

"What happened to your child?" she enquired.

"He's in that box you're holding," said Dawn.

The waitress stared at her.

"Unless it's a she," Dawn added.

The waitress opened and closed her mouth several times, but failed to actually say anything. Finally, she just dropped the Kid's Meal into Dawn's lap, cast one more nervous glance at the back of the Escort, and moved quickly away from the take-out window.

Grinning broadly, Dawn maneuvered her car into a nearby parking space, reached into the Kid's Meal box with her free hand, and groped around inside until her fingers alighted on something hard, solid, and wrapped in plastic.

She pulled this object out of the box and scrutinized it. Burger King was at this time engaging in a harmless and profitable Pokémon promotion, and the toy that Dawn had received with her meal turned out to be a small plastic Squertle figure, with a button on the back of his head that made his eyes light up. It wasn't precisely a Patchwork Girl, but it would do.

With her heart beating quickly, Dawn ripped the packaging open with her teeth and drew out the precious toy. Then, carefully, she held it beneath the bottle's squirming mouth and spilled a small amount of Powder onto his shell.

She placed it on the dashboard; and, for the first time since it had come into her possession, she took her right hand off the bottle of Powder. Raising it high in the air, pinkie finger extended, she cried, "Weaugh!"

Then, with the thumb extended from her left hand, "Teaugh!"

And finally, with both hands spread wide, "Peaugh!"

Nothing happened.

* * *

Dawn stared, stunned, at the lifeless piece of plastic on her dashboard. Some small, internal voice had been telling her all along that it wouldn't work, that things like this didn't happen no matter how many pop bottles podiatrists talked to, but until now she had resolutely ignored it. Now the proof was before her eyes.

"It must have been the wrong incantation," she muttered frantically. "I must have used the wrong hand gestures… yes, of course, it's the thumb of the left hand and the pinkie of the right hand… Weaugh, Teaugh, Peaugh!"

The Squertle remained firmly lifeless.

Dawn closed her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. "No, that's not it either," she said. "The left hand comes first… Weaugh, Teaugh, Peaugh!

"Or maybe I had the fingers right the first time… Weaugh, Teaugh, Peaugh!

"Or…"

Then, without warning, all the energy seemed to leave her, and she dropped her head forward onto the steering wheel. "Oh, get a grip, Dawn," she muttered to herself. "There's no Powder of Life there, because there's no Powder of Life anywhere. I'll bet if you look up right now, there won't even be a bottle in the cup-holder."

She flopped her head to the left and stared at the cup-holder. Sure enough, the bottle she had so clearly felt squirming in her hand was no longer there.

"You see?" she said. "You imagined the whole thing. You worked yourself into paranoia and blew $1.99, just because you wanted… you wanted… because you wanted…" Her voice gave out suddenly, and she started sobbing into the steering-wheel leather.

"That's too bad," said a small, high-pitched voice. "I wish I could do something to help."

Dawn jerked her head upward. The plastic Squertle was standing unsteadily on the passenger's-side airbag, a look of great concern in its wide, transparent eyes.

"You're… you're alive," Dawn whispered.

The Squertle looked surprised. "Yes, I suppose I am," he said. "Is that a problem?"

"It's alive," Dawn said, a broad grin spreading slowly over her face. "It's alive. It's alive!" She flung open the car door and screamed to the parking lot, in a Colin Clive imitation that would have done Robin Williams proud, "It's alive!"

And, ignoring the startled looks from pedestrians, drivers, and particularly the waitress at the window, she slammed the door shut again, grabbed the toy Pokémon, and kissed every point she could find on his plastic surface.

"Oh, I'm so glad to see you, honey," she said. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this."

"No," the Squertle agreed, "but perhaps I can guess."

Dawn laughed, less at the mild witticism than from sheer delight. Then, suddenly, a thought struck her, and her countenance experienced a slight darkening. "Hang on, though," she said. "If you're alive, and all of it really did happen… then where did the bottle go?"

The Squertle's eyes flickered on and off, which appeared to be his equivalent of a blink. "What bottle?"


	12. The Sound and the Fury

The three minutes that Dawn spent sobbing into her steering wheel were perhaps the most active three minutes Ozma's throne room had ever seen.

When Amy's body materialized on the marble table, most of the persons sitting at that table were stunned. Jack jerked backwards, nearly squashing his head against the back of his chair; the Glass Cat yowled and thrashed her tail, knocking the Gump's prop out from underneath him; and Ozara broke off in the middle of invoking the Paramyxidia, hot with shame at the realization that Ozma had found her out.

Scraps, however, took the event in stride. "Fine work, Madam Ozara!" she cried as she grabbed the squirming bottle. "Truly fine work! Those biological phyla really know their stuff, don't they?"

Ozara laughed hollowly. The Patchwork Girl still thinks it's my spell, she thought. Pity the Fairy Princess doesn't.

She could already see, out the corner of her eye, Ozma and the Wizard coming for her, their compassionate, pitying smiles fixed in place. They'd never execute her, of course; after all, this was the Land of Oz. They'd simply take her out to the Fountain of Oblivion and give her a nice, cool drink, and she'd lay aside all her old grudges and bitterness and become a sweet little old lady and a model citizen; and the thought was so repulsive to her that she determined to have one last crack at civil disobedience.

"Yes, they certainly do," she said. "Pliny, come look at this marvelous thing the phyla have done for us." She gave her associate a meaningful look, and the Ape grinned, nodded, and circled around behind the Patchwork Girl.

"You know, it's odd," said Ozara, "but this doesn't seem to be the same bottle I originally put the Powder in. Someone in the Outside World must have switched containers."

Scraps frowned, and stared at the bottle as it struggled against her grasp. "You think someone's already used the Powder?" she asked.

"It's possible," said Ozara. "The Outer World isn't part of the Land of Oz, you know, so its citizens don't think they need to obey the Laws of Oz. They love legal technicalities like that."

Scraps nodded thoughtfully at this, and scrutinized the bottle even more closely – so closely, in fact, that she never noticed Pliny standing behind her until he jumped up onto her neck, clapped his hands over her button eyes, and said, "Guess who!"

Instinctively, Scraps yelped and reached up to grab Pliny's arms; and the bottle, released from her grip in the middle of a particularly elaborate squirm, launched itself in a graceful half-somersault across the marble table and onto the floor, spraying Powder all over the table and the thirteen persons present. It hit the floor at a 37-degree angle and fell on its side (as cylinders are wont to do), but it quickly righted itself and began to move in a curious gyrating motion toward the throne room door. Unfortunately for it, the Glass Cat, forgetting all her crystalline dignity in the excitement of the moment, leapt down from the table and gave chase; and the bottle, which would probably have lost in a race with a tortoise, was no match whatsoever for an object with respectably sized legs. In fifteen seconds, Bungle had it pinned to the ground.

Those fifteen seconds, however, were all the distraction Ozara needed. Darting back into the enclave where Voorspoogel and the Nameless Man stood, she made three lightning hand gestures and shouted, "Weaugh, Teaugh, Peaugh!"

And the Gump, who had just managed to prop himself up against a nearby chair, was sent tumbling to the ground as the marble table shook itself, and its four carved-Tottenhot supports turned their heads to get their first look at the world.

Cackling wildly, Ozara grabbed Voorspoogel and leapt onto the Table-top, with Pliny close on her heels.

"Jack!" she yelled. "Get up here!"

The Nameless Man stood perfectly still for two and a half seconds, then turned with a look of dawning comprehension. "Oh! Were you speaking to…"

"Move it!"

The Nameless Man did so.

"All right, my marble lovelies," said Ozara, "let's get out of here."

The Table obliged. It wasn't quite as fast as the Sawhorse, and next to the Silver Shoes, it would have looked positively sluggish; but it traveled half the length of the Throne Room in three seconds, so Ozara had no reason to complain.

And where, you ask, was Ozma during all of this? She was standing in the middle of the Throne Room, utterly dazed; for, like many immortals, she had a fine mind, but not a quick one. Just as she was beginning to think that she really ought to do something to check Ozara's progress, the Glass Cat called out, "Ozma, I have discovered why the bottle is acting so strangely. It is alive, but its brain appears to have been removed, and did not come when the bottle was summoned."

Oh, thought Ozma. Well, that should be simple enough to fix. And she whispered a second command to the Magic Belt, tapping it with her little finger as she did so.

She could have made no more unfortunate move. Ozara, who by now was halfway out the door, happened to catch sight of the gesture; seeing it, she remembered how her first plan had been foiled, and determined not to make the same mistake twice. She pulled a blue globe out from beneath her cloak, smashed it on the table, and yelled:

"Tigers in the jungle, lions on the veldt, work you now your Magic on the Magic Belt!"

A blue drop of smoke emerged from the cloud at her feet, whizzed across the Throne Room, and struck Ozma squarely in the midriff, knocking her onto the floor.

That was enough for the Sawhorse. He wasn't the most legally minded creature in Oz, and he had never developed any intense hatred of criminals as such, but the sight of Ozara doing violence to his mistress managed to provoke his ire. With an irate whinny, he galloped after the Marble Table, not stopping to think what he would do once he caught up with it.

As it turned out, he didn't get to do much. He overtook the Table before it had gotten more than half of the way through the front hall; but rather than appear nervous at this development, Ozara simply nodded to Pliny, who proceeded to grab the Sawhorse by the neck and fling him back into the Throne Room, where he landed spread-eagle in the middle of the floor, skidded across the smooth, marble surface, and smashed into the far wall. Gallantly, he attempted to get back up and try again, but found that his right hind leg had been splintered on impact with the wall, which made running somewhat difficult.

Satisfied, Ozara spurred the Table on again, and the five of them galloped out of the Palace and headed northwards, meeting no further opposition.

* * *

From his vantage point of upside-down on the floor, the Gump emitted a heavy sigh. It is frustrating to feel utterly useless, and that was precisely how the Gump felt at this moment. Once upon a time, he could have risen gallantly to such an occasion as this; Ozma and the Wizard would have jumped into his cockpit, he would have soared across the Emerald City and the miscreants would have been quickly overtaken. That, however, was out of the question now; his cockpit was currently furnishing the parlor of Ozma's palace, and as for his wings, nobody seemed to know just what had happened to them.

"There are certainly times," he mused aloud, "when it is a distinct inconvenience not to have limbs."

A high, shaky laugh came from behind him. "Tell me about it."

Surprised, the Gump turned himself in the direction of the voice. A small strip of plastic was lying on the floor about ten inches away from him; it had the face of a young woman, and she was staring at the Throne Room as though at some new and frightening vista.

"Who are you?" the Gump asked.

The girl seemed surprised that he had noticed her. "Oh, um… my name's Amidala Beutler," she said, "but people just call me Amy."

"My name's the Gump," said that personage. "Folks call me the Gump."

Amy's mouth fell open. "The Gump?" she said. "The one with the sofas?"

Since the Gump knew of no other Gump who had ever been associated with sofas, he admitted that this was probably him. Amy became visibly excited at this, but before she could say anything, Ozma, who had managed to get to her feet with the aid of Jack Pumpkinhead and the Wizard, addressed the crowd.

"Friends," she said, "this is a rather unhappy situation. The witch Ozara and her companions have escaped, our good friend the Sawhorse has been severely injured, and it would appear" (here she frowned and tapped her waist) "that the Magic Belt is no longer working properly. However, we must not let ourselves despair, for no good can come of that. All these things can be fixed, but only if we believe they can.

"We ought also to remember," she went on, "that the Powder of Life is now in our possession; both the bottle, which the Glass Cat has bravely apprehended," (Bungle licked her paw in ostentatious demureness) "and the bottle's brain, which is somewhere in this room. I am not sure exactly what it looks like, but it ought to be something that fits easily on the bottle; and so, clearly, the first thing we must do is search for it."

The Gump glanced again at Amidala Beutler. He noticed that she was the same color as the bottle's torn label had been; and he reflected on how strange it was for someone to appear in Ozma's Throne Room unless Ozma had summoned her. Then he cleared his throat.

"That might not be necessary," he said.


	13. Pensées

"Let me see if I understand," said the toy Squertle. "There is a bottle containing a magic powder, which, if it is sprinkled on a lifeless object and certain words are recited, will bring the object to life."

"Right," said Dawn, staring impatiently out the windshield at the Plymouth Voyager in front of her.

"That bottle used to be in this car."

"Right."

"But it no longer is."

"Right."

"Therefore," said the Squertle, "the logical conclusion is that someone has moved it."

"Exactly," said Dawn. "Which is more than I can say for Plymouth Rock here." She rolled down the window and honked her horn. "Hey, Grandpa! Move your derrière or get off the road, why don't you?"

The driver of the Voyager – whose name, as it happens, was Robert Cullinan Jr., and who did not actually have grandchildren, although his daughter was expecting in September – responded by gesturing towards what Dawn considered to be a completely irrelevant sign stating that the speed limit was 55 miles per hour. Dawn swore, then, realizing that she had a young child in the car, covered her mouth contritely.

The Squertle, however, seemed not to have noticed. "Tell me," he said, "how many people are there who could have moved the bottle?"

Dawn thought for a moment. "Well," she said, "the bottle was alive, so I suppose it could have moved itself; but it didn't have arms, so it couldn't have opened the door."

"All right," said the Squertle.

"You or I could have moved it, since we were in the car," Dawn continued, "but I know I didn't, and if you had, you wouldn't need to ask the question."

"That is logical," the Squertle agreed.

"If an ordinary person had tried to get inside the car, he would have had to open the door," said Dawn. "Since neither of us heard the door open, that must not have been it."

The Squertle nodded. "Good, we are making excellent progress. Tell me, is there anyone who could have taken the bottle from the car without opening the doors?"

Dawn considered. "God, I suppose," she said. "Maybe the Rapture occurred while we were in the parking lot."

"The Rapture? I'm sorry; I don't know what that is."

"There's a theory," Dawn said, "that when the Creator of the universe decides to end the world, the first thing He'll do will be to snatch everyone who believes in Him out of the universe, and then leave all the other people to fend for themselves for seven years while the Devil's chosen one reigns supreme on Earth."

The Squertle was properly impressed.

"Yes, that would fit," Dawn mused. "If God did come to claim the good Christians, I can understand not inviting me to the party, and I can definitely understand not inviting Plymouth Plantation in front of us; but Amy seemed like a nice, pious girl when I talked to her, so she very well might get in." She frowned thoughtfully at the Squertle. "I'm not sure why you wouldn't go, though," she said. "You're an unblemished soul at the moment, so you ought to make the cut just fine; but then, maybe I hadn't brought you to life yet, and you just missed the boat. And then there's always original sin…"

"Original sin?" enquired the Squertle.

"Yeah, all mortal beings are born under the curse of sin inherited from Adam, so you're not quite unblemished," said Dawn. "So really, it makes perfect sense."

"It's fascinating," said the Squertle, whose eyes were glowing with something other than cheap fluorescence.

Dawn nodded, reflecting. "You know, there's an easy way to find out," she said. "If two billion Christians just disappeared worldwide, there ought to be something about it on NPR." She reached to the car radio and switched it on.

"Tell me," said the Squertle, "how did this Adam come to…"

Dawn shushed him and turned up the volume knob, frowning with concentration.

"…listening to 'All Things Considered' on National Public Radio," said Linda Wertheimer. "In a White House press conference today, President Clinton accused Republican leaders in Congress of 'a lack of proportion', saying that their focus on the Monica Lewinsky affair has caused them to ignore many other vital issues facing the…"

Dawn switched off the radio decisively. "Okay, scratch that theory," she said. "If they're still bothering themselves with Billy-Boy's blatherings, nothing too terrible can have happened to the country." Dawn was terminally cynical about politics, and had voted the Natural Law ticket in 1996 only because her aunt had considered people who stayed home on Election Day to be closet Castro supporters.

The Squertle – one of the few life-forms in America at this time to whom the name "Monica Lewinsky" meant nothing – was understandably mystified, but he had grasped the salient point. "Then God is not responsible for the bottle's disappearance?" he said.

"Doesn't look like it," said Dawn. "Not directly, anyway."

This answer only heaped fuel on the Squertle's already-blazing curiosity, but he refrained from comment on the theory that there would be plenty of time for that later. "And there is no one else who could take something from a car without entering it?" he said.

Dawn shook her head. "Not the last I heard," she said. "Not unless someone's actually invented the transporter beam, or…" She stopped, and struck the handle of the steering wheel with the palm of her hand. "I am such an idiot!" she exclaimed.

"Pardon?" said the Squertle.

"The Magic Belt!" said Dawn. "It can whisk people across the Deadly Desert; of course it can yank bottles out of Buicks! And if the old man was carrying Powder of Life, why shouldn't he be carrying the Belt, too?"

She laughed and shook her head. "I tell you, Squertle," she said, "I knew there was some funny traffic going through Miami, but I had no idea just what…"

"'Squertle'?" the toy repeated.

Dawn glanced at him. "Yeah, 'Squertle'," she said. "That's your name."

Insofar as it is possible for a plastic tortoise-thing to wrinkle its nose, this is what the Squertle now did. "Who decided that?" he said.

Dawn shrugged. "The guy who produces Pokémon," she said. "I don't know his name."

"I see," said the Squertle. "And why is a Pokémon producer whom my mother doesn't know qualified to choose my name?"

Dawn looked at him, but didn't say anything. She was sure she knew the answer to the question, but the Squertle's reference to her as his mother had temporarily banished all other data from her mind.

"Particularly," added her progeny, "when that name is such an inelegant one as 'Squertle'."

"We could Latinize it," said Dawn vaguely. "'Squertilius'. Is that better?"

The Squertle considered. "Much," he said. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Dawn murmured.

Then, all of a sudden, she started giggling. "Squertilius Teuling," she said. "Ladies and gentlemen, may I present my son, Squertilius Teuling." The giggles turned into all-out, frame-wracking laughter, and Dawn had to pull over to avoid swerving off the road.

Squertilius waited until she had calmed down sufficiently before he spoke again. "Let me see, then," he said. "I have been alive for perhaps fifteen minutes, and already I know what my name is, how to tell whether the world is coming to an end, and how to move a bottle without coming near it." He shook his head. "The world is clearly a very educational place."

Dawn gave him a sly grin. "Just wait until you hear your mother's plans for getting that bottle back," she said. "There are whole oceans of knowledge you haven't even dreamed of yet."

And she pulled back onto the highway and burned rubber for downtown Miami.


	14. Remembrance of Things Past

Now we must return to Caesar Beutler, who, the readers of this chronicle will recall, was accidentally dropped on a museum floor, directly in the path of a rampaging Deinonychus skeleton, back in Chapter 9. We would have returned to him sooner, but we were distracted by all the excitement elsewhere.

For really there was nothing terribly exciting in what happened to Caesar. As Dr. Beutler ducked into the Evolution Room, and the other patrons fled in terror, there was nothing he could do except lie quietly on the floor until the Deinonychus showed up, sniffed at him curiously for a moment, and then grabbed him in its mouth and swallowed him whole.

* * *

As Caesar entered the great beast's maw, he felt a spasm of irritation. He was aware, of course, that he was a good deal more mortal than his sister – Jack Pumpkinhead's concerns about spoilage, expressed so vividly in _The Land of Oz_, applied with equal if not greater validity to salads – but he had thought he might live a bit longer than this. What was the point of being brought into such a varied and marvelous universe, if one was only to be unceremoniously ejected from it at the end of two weeks?

His philosophical temperament, however, soon overruled this line of thought. After all, he reflected, to have life at all was an inexplicable gift; it was ridiculous to say that he had a right to any particular length of it. The critical thing was to use it well, and this he believed he had done: so, really, there was nothing to complain of.

The Lord giveth, he mused (being familiar with the passage from one of Father Kilgannon's radio sermons), and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

And just as he came to this conclusion, the Deinonychus succeeded in swallowing him completely. He was squeezed out the back of the skeleton's jaw, slid through the open space between its ribs, and, with a loud plop, landed once again on the tiled floor.

It took him a moment to realize that he was still alive. When he did, he simultaneously felt bewilderment, overwhelming gratitude, and that peculiar annoyance that comes to people who reconcile themselves to a state of affairs just as it ceases to be the current one.

The Deinonychus, on the other hand, was merely puzzled. It turned around and sniffed at Caesar, flipping him over once or twice as though to examine him more thoroughly.

"Very strange," it murmured. Its voice was strong and masculine, with a tone somewhere between a hiss and a purr.

"What is very strange?" Caesar enquired.

"You are," said the Deinonychus. "I am. Everything is."

Caesar nodded. (It was interesting to watch when he did it; it involved letting his lettuce carry the vegetables that formed his face in an up-and-down motion across his bag.) "You have made a profound observation there," he said.

"One moment, I am battling one of my pack-mates for a share of the Iguanodon we have killed," said the Deinonychus. "The next moment, I am a stone carcass in a bright cave, unable to consume even so peculiar and helpless a creature as yourself." He shook his head. "I can't understand it. Can you?"

"Actually, I can," said Caesar. "You see, I am, in a sense, responsible for it."

The Deinonychus cocked his head to the side. "Indeed?" he said.

"Yes," said Caesar. "You see…" He hesitated, unsure where to begin.

"Tell me," he said, "are you familiar with the idea of time?"

"Time?" The Deinonychus frowned, as though he had heard the word before, but never given it any great thought.

"Yes," said Caesar. "What separates now from then. What makes young things old."

The Deinonychus perked up. "Ah, old!" he said. "Yes, I know about old. Old is what makes prey-creatures slower and easier to kill."

"Just so," said Caesar politely. "Well, since your battle with your pack-mate, the world has become very much older."

The Deinonychus hesitated. "How much older?" he asked, and Caesar thought he already knew the answer.

"All the creatures you knew are dead," he said simply.

Unlike podiatrists and soft-drink containers, social predators cannot afford to display their emotions too broadly. Consequently, the only reaction to this news that Caesar observed was the Deinonychus's tail drooping two inches.

"I suspected as much," he said quietly. "And I am dead, too, I suppose?"

"You were," said Caesar. "My father and my sister and I brought you back to life."

"Why?" said the Deinonychus.

Caesar considered the question for a moment, and realized that the strictly honest answer would be, "Because we had to do something with the Powder, and this was the most creative thing we could think of." He suspected, however, that this would not be a wise answer to give the Deinonychus, so he said, "Because we wished to know what the world was like in your time."

The Deinonychus snorted. "What a stupid idea," he said. "The world was quite dull in my time. You ate, you slept, you mated in the summertime, and that was all. We didn't mind because we didn't talk or think, but no creature who did talk and think could possibly be interested in it."

"Some might be," Caesar said mildly. "For example, I neither eat, nor sleep, nor mate at any time, so all these things are of great interest to me."

The Deinonychus frowned. "You don't?" he said. "What sort of creature are you, then?"

"The same sort as you are, now," said Caesar. "The magic that brought us to life does not believe that eating, sleeping, and so forth are necessary activities of life."

The Deinonychus laughed shortly. "So, then," he said, "from being a creature that could neither talk nor think, I have become one that can do nothing else."

Caesar was puzzled by the rueful tone in the Deinonychus's voice. "Do you not find this fortunate?" he said. "It seems to me that knowledge and thought are the major purpose of life, and that the need for food and sleep merely distracts from this."

The Deinonychus gave him an odd look. "You were never alive before the magic was performed, were you?" he said.

"No."

"I thought not." The Deinonychus straightened himself. "So, then, what shall we do now?"

Caesar considered. "We could try to find my father and Amy," he said. "I suspect they will want to meet you."

"I could do that," the Deinonychus agreed. "Does your father smell like you?"

Caesar, of course, had no nose, and therefore could not answer this question from personal experience, but all the same he felt rather sure of the answer. "No," he said. "He smells more like the people who were running away from you a few minutes ago."

The Deinonychus nodded, and sniffed at the air. "Yes," he said after a few moments. "There are very few scents in this air, and your father's is quite clear. He is in there." He pointed to the doorway of the Evolution Room.

"Then let us go in there," said Caesar.

The Deinonychus nodded, and began to walk off. After a moment, finding that Caesar did not follow him, he turned and looked back.

"Aren't you coming?" he said.

"I can't," said Caesar mildly. "Inside this bag, I am completely sessile. You will have to carry me."

So the Deinonychus picked him up (giving him at the same time a look of sincere but annoyingly condescending sympathy), and the two of them went into the Evolution Room, where they discovered Dr. Beutler lying face-down on the floor where Dawn had left him.

"Is this him?" said the Deinonychus, nudging the doctor's inert body with his foot.

Caesar frowned. "Possibly," he said. "Turn him over, so I can see his face."

The Deinonychus slid his foot underneath Dr. Beutler's stomach and lifted, and Dr. Beutler flopped onto his back with a muffled thump.

Caesar nodded. "Yes, that's him."

"Strange," said the Deinonychus, sniffing Dr. Beutler's body. "He doesn't smell dead, so I suppose he must be asleep – but I've never seen a prey animal fall asleep while it was being hunted before."

"Perhaps he fainted," suggested Caesar. "Humans sometimes do that when you mention the names of lost lovers to them." (This had been a key plot element on that day's "Amos and Andy".)

"Maybe," said the Deinonychus, unconvinced. He bent down to examine the body more closely – and, as he did so, Dr. Beutler moaned and opened his eyes.

Now, it was only natural that Dr. Beutler, regaining consciousness after a severe blow to the head to discover an undead Deinonychus's skull looming not two inches from his face, should have been somewhat flustered – and it was probably inevitable that, under the influence of this flusterment, he should have made an instinctive, spasmodic movement of his head, resulting in the collision of his forehead with the Deinonychus's stone snout. It must be admitted, however, that this was not an auspicious beginning for their acquaintance.

"Oof!" said the Deinonychus, shaking his skull. "May I ask, good sir, just what that was for?"

Dr. Beutler blinked. "You can talk?"

Caesar saw that some introductions were in order. "If you will allow me, Father," he said. "This is…" He frowned, and glanced up at the Deinonychus. "Do you have a name?"

"Not to my knowledge," said the Deinonychus. "Names are fairly unnecessary when you don't speak."

"True," Caesar admitted. "All the same, you should have one now. Shall I think of one for you?"

"Please," said the Deinonychus. "Nothing too fancy, you understand; just something simple and commonplace."

Caesar reflected. "I believe the most common name in the world is Mohammed Chang," he said. "Mohammed the first name, Chang the last name. Will that do?"

"Admirably," said the Deinonychus. "Thank you."

"My pleasure," said Caesar. "Father, this is Mohammed Chang. Mohammed, my father, Dr. Ralph Beutler."

"A pleasure," said Dr. Beutler vaguely.

Mohammed scrutinized him thoughtfully. "So you are the great sorcerer who can summon new life at will," he said. "I must say, I expected something… different."

Dr. Beutler smiled weakly. "I would scarcely call myself a great sorcerer," he said. "I just happen to have a daughter with a few exceptional abilities."

"Speaking of whom," said Caesar, frowning, "where is she?"

Dr. Beutler glanced down at his empty right hand, then back up at Caesar and Mohammed. "Oh, dear God."


End file.
